I have decided to write about motivation as this will be one of the main focuses involved in my job as a personal trainer when I qualify. I will relate the topic to exercise and try to keep it short and precise. Enjoy.
What is motivation?
Motivation is the wants, needs and beliefs that drive a character to accomplish an action. There are four different aspects relating to motivation which are Physiological, behavioural, cognitive and social factors.
Abraham Maslow(1943) proposed the concept of human hierarchy of needs which can be related to motivational theories.
Human Hierarchy of Needs
There are 2 types of motivation Intrinsic and extrinsic:
Intrinsic– Which comes from within the individual such as their belief, interest and enjoyment of tasks or goals they want to achieve.
Extrinsic– Performing an activity to achieve a certain outcome for example exercising to lose weight or studying to achieve good grades.
Science of motivation
There have been many studies concerned with motivation but I have chosen studies that have interested me and that can relate to exercise which are David Conroy’s experiment and Dan Pink’s Ted Talk.
At Penn state University David Conroy and colleagues conducted an experiment to measure motivation within students to exercise. They recruited 33 college students who were assessed over a 10 week period, they were fitted with pedometers to measure activity and asked them to rate every week their motivation to perform physical exercise. Results showed for the majority of the students that motivation fluxuates on a weekly basis because for most of us we have so many demands on our time such as work deadlines, social factors, sickness etc. Lapses in motivation become destructive and can impair us to perform physical activity. Amanda Hyde kinesiology graduate proposed that people like this can still be successful at incorporating physical activity into their life. She proposed that this can be done not by changing their lifestyle but changing the way they currently do things within that lifestyle such as instead of driving to work, walk or cycle to work, instead of walking upstairs you should run upstairs etc.
Dan pink talks about the surprising science of motivation. He talks about incentives and how businesses are run but the ideas involved can be contributed towards motivation for exercise.
Ideas and methods to get motivated for exercise
Everybody needs motivation in order to exercise because with a lack of it other things will prioritise themselves ahead of your need to exercise. This is the main aspect of this post that will hopefully give you ideas and help you become motivated to achieve your goals.
There are many motivators involved with exercise such as:
- Appearance
- Fitness
- Competence
- Social
- Enjoyment/Interest
The vast majority fail when it comes to exercise as they mainly focus on the appearance motivator and because they don’t see fast improvement of their appearance they quit. Appearance is a fixed motivator and that alone will not lead to long term commitment. You have to tap into the other motivators that were listed. Use fitness as a motivator by measuring how much fitter you are becoming e.g. you can do 5 more pushups than you could previously. Use competence as a motivator by realising that you are looking after yourself by doing this, you are becoming a good role model and through experience and knowledge of exercise you can help others to achieve their goals also. Use social as a motivator as through exercise, gym, classes you will meet new people, some of which may share the same goals as you. Tap into all these motivators and enjoyment and interest will follow.
Before you start an exercise regime:
- Be specific with what you want to achieve
- You should set a measurable overall goal
- You should set smaller measureable goals linked to overall goals
- Turn all negative thoughts and feelings into positive ones such as pain which is temporary but success lasts longer
- Do not think about exercising as over thinking leads to thinking of other things you could do instead.
Throughout the time you exercise you have to be honest with yourself by asking yourself questions such as “did I give 110% and if you didn’t how are you going to give it that much next time. Always remember what you are trying to achieve. If you notice that something is wrong or not working for you reassess the situation and correct it. To become successful and achieve your goals within Fitness and exercise you have to focus on exercise, diet, sleep and motivation.
Hopefully you have enjoyed reading this. Become the best version of yourself.
psychmatt 